The origins of Linux®
“Linus Torvalds and his peers," wrote Wired magazine last November, "accept contributions from any and all sources based on the merits of the code alone. They don't have the institutional resources to ensure that a programmer isn't guilty of plagiarism.” In a path-breaking study, AdTI's Kenneth Brown reviews the origins and development of Linux -- in light of repeated expressions of contempt for intellectual property rights by Torvalds and some (but by no means all) open source programmers. For a preview of Brown's forthcoming work, click here. For links to excerpts of the paper as they appear, click here.
Fed... up
Alan Greenspan may not be sure what to do about interest rates -- but as AdTI's Gregory Fossedal argues, global stock markets seem to be "Fed up." Maybe that's what Mr. Greenspan and his fellow governors should do: move the rates up. The time to battle inflation is two years before you see the whites of its eyes. Read Fossedal's latest analysis here.
Federal, state savings
from internet phone calls
Smiling ladies operating mid-20th-Century technology provide quaint material for "Nick at Night," but cost taxpayers money. A switch to voice-over-internet-protocol technology, or VoIP, could reduce the combined telephone bills of U.S. federal and state and local governments by billions of dollars. Budget managers, call your office -- er, well, send them an email, until you get your service upgraded. Read the release here.
Ideas matter dept.
Today, AdTI; tomorrow, The Weekly Standard... the day after tomorrow, a more confident and coherent Iraq policy? For more than a year, such Tocqueville contributors as Gregory Fossedal and Jack Kemp have urged U.S. policy-makers to hold prompt, if perforce imperfect, elections in Iraq -- to begin democracy-building with votes on everything from local offices to national issue referenda. Now, senior Republican and Democratic advisors from Bill Kristol onward are beginning to sound the theme. For a chronology, click here.
Patents and the Penguin
The rising popularity of GNU Linux and other computer programs poses a challenge for both software writers and the businesses and individuals who use their products. Can open-source, mixed-source, and traditional proprietary software co-exist with mutual respect for intellectual property rights? If not, what are the consequences? AdTI President Ken Brown previews the a vital emerging debate
at this link. To read a release summarizing the paper, click here. Read press and discussion of "Patents and the Penguin" here.
Afghanistan, Iraqistan:
Answerstan, electionsstan
Everybody knows Iraq and Afghanistan aren't ready for democracy until the security situation improves radically. Everybody except AdTI Senior Fellow Gregory Fossedal, who argues that the way to improve the security situation is to start having lots of votes. Courtesy of UPI.
Inside-out-sourcing
Everyone knows that major U.S. corporations are shipping jobs overseas. Not everyone knows that patented and copyrighted intellectual property is leaving U.S. shores in a wave as well -- some of it stolen, some of it literally given away. Is there a connection between this "devaluation" of billions of dollars of American property, and the flood of technology jobs abroad? You bet there is. To read Ken Brown's analysis, click
here. For other press and commentary, click here.
Also at Tocqueville
Robert L. Bartley, RIP
Gregory Fossedal, December 20, 2003
Internet telephone calls: A VoIP primer
Kenneth Brown, AdTI Research Report, December 2003
Global tax cut dominoes, part one: India
Gregory Fossedal, UPI, December 15, 2003
Brown: Regulating the cost of Nickelodeon
AdTI Release, December 10, 2003
Tocqueville Award to FCC's Martin
AdTI Release, September 18, 2003
Robert Severns remembered
AdTI Commentary, June 27, 2003
Fossedal: Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people
BBC Interview, April 12, 2003
Kemp: Building Iraqi capitalism
Copley News Service, March 15, 2003
Fossedal: Iraq needs ballots, too
Legal Times, February 27, 2003
Tages Anzeiger: Review of "Direct Democracy in Switzerland"
Sara Kupfer translation from Markus Somm
|
